Rosie Dixon's Complete Confessions

“Dad—!”

“Shut up!!! You must realise that, being older than her, you have to set some kind of example. Supposing she starts imitating your behaviour?”

“It’s not fair, Dad. I always get the blame for everything. Just because she’s younger than I am you seem to think that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Well, I’ve got news for you—”

“And I’ve got news for you, my girl. I want you out of this house just as soon as you can find a job to support you. I think you’re a bad influence on your sister and it’s much better if the two of you are kept apart.”

For ten seconds after he had finished speaking I am on the point of telling my father a few home truths about my sweet little sister; and then my mind soars up to a higher plane. I see Doctor Eradlik walking down a long white corridor, a look of stoical self-sacrifice etched across his beautiful features. I see Jennifer Jones approaching Rock Hudson’s bed. I have arrived at a decision.

“Very well, Dad,” I say calmly. “I can tell you what I’m going to do, now. I’m going to be a nurse.”

Three and a half weeks later I have been summoned to an interview with the matron of Queen Adelaide’s and Dad and the family are just beginning to understand that I meant what I said.

Dad, particularly, finds it difficult to believe that any hospital would be prepared to consider me. He has an idea that nurses are somewhat like nuns and unlikely to be accepted if they have so much as caught a glimpse of an unpeeled banana. He also reckons that you have to be of noble birth and watch BBC 2 as well as have it.

“You’re not going to tell me that all those black nurses are princesses,” says Mum.

“I don’t know so much,” says Dad. “A lot of those blackies you see on the telly are better dressed than white people.”

“You don’t watch those,’ says Natalie. “You watch the ones with the bare titties doing the conga.”

“Natalie! Watch your language, please!” Mum looks horrified.

“We all know where she gets that from, don’t we?” Dad fixes me with his beady eye and I would like to bash him over the nut with Natalie.

Raquel Welchlet is the one who continued to be most surprised by the way I stick to my resolve.

“I never reckoned you were serious,” she says. “I thought you were just doing it for effect. Like when you read that book about air hostesses.”

“Air stewardesses,” I hiss. “Hostesses are people who work in nightclubs.”

“Those stewardesses spent all their time in night clubs if that book was anything to go by.”

“Well, nurses don’t spend all their time in night clubs so you needn’t start fretting about my eyesight.”

“I don’t think you’ll be able to stick it even if they do accept you. They work terribly hard, you know.”

“But it must be rewarding, mustn’t it?”

“The pay’s lousy from what I can make out.”

“I didn’t mean that.” Natalie is about as sensitive as a clay tuning fork. “I meant that it must be satisfying to nurse people back to health.”

Natalie sniffs and shakes her head. “I don’t like sick people.”

“It’s people like you that give being healthy a bad name,” I tell her.

Mum is merely realistic. “Do what you like, dear, but make sure you don’t catch anything.”

Queen Adelaide’s is a big disappointment after Mount Vista on the Doctor Eradlik show. It is a huge hospital but it looks as if it was carved out of charcoal and then had a giant vacuum cleaner bag emptied over it. What I at first imagine to be its grounds turn out to be the public park next door. As I go through the swing doors two nurses are coming out. They are wearing red cloaks with blue linings and talking in upper class voices.

“Stupid little bitch thought your sternum was what you sat on,” says the first.

“Oh no!” The second one’s voice screeches into the air like a rocket. Dad would love them.

Just inside the door is a pigeon hole behind which sits a pigeon wearing glasses. She coos softly to herself when I say that I have an appointment with matron and shuffles through a pile of papers.

“Rose Dixon?” She rises up slightly and leans forward as if she is wishing to confirm that I have brought the lower half of my body with me. Apparently satisfied, she sinks back and gives me totally unmemorable directions of which I can recall no more than that I have to go to the third floor. I am frightened to ask her to say it all again unless I immediately give the impression of being hopelessly stupid—just like the girl the two nurses were talking about. Who knows? The directions might be part of some cunning test to check on my memory.

I get into the lift and, for some reason that I will never understand, press the button marked four. I immediately press three but the lift glides contemptuously past my destination and stops at the fourth floor. The doors slide open and I am faced by an old man in a wheelchair and a nurse who is escorting him. He is wearing a dressing gown and seems half asleep. The nurse has no sooner pushed her patient into the lift than she slaps her hand to her forehead.

“Jesus, but it’s a fool that I am. I’ve gone and left his records in the ward. Hang on here for a moment, will you?”

Before I can say anything she has disappeared down the corridor. My presence on the fourth floor must suggest to her that I am a member of the hospital staff.

She has pressed the “door open” button but no sooner has she padded off than the patient’s eyes open a quarter of an inch, rather like those of the crocodiles you see in all those nature films on the telly. I am probably being very unkind comparing him to a crocodile because he looks quite a sweet old man. He is smiling at me now.

“She’ll be back in a minute,” I say comfortingly. It is all rather nice because I feel like a nurse already.

“Get your knicks off!”

Before I can be certain that I am hearing aright the old man has pressed the button marked B for Basement and the doors are closing.

“Please! We must wait,” I yelp.

“We’ll go down to the boiler room and stimulate each other on the coke,” says the sprightly greybeard. “You don’t mind a few pink patches on your bum, do you?”

“I’ve got to see Matron!” The lift sinks below the third floor.

“Don’t waste your time. She’s the ugliest woman in the hospital.” He suddenly propels his chair across the lift and pins me against the wall. “Come here! I want to take handfuls of you.”

He is a man of his word, too. When I come to think about it he must be both the oldest and the dirtiest man that I have ever met.

“Stop doing that!” I squeal, thinking that his sense of direction has not faltered over the years. “You must pull yourself together!”

“Up guards and at ’em! I’m eighty-four and I could show you young girls a thing or two.” He whips open his dressing gown and once again proves his point. I must say that though it distresses me to look at his equipment it is certainly more ramrod than shamrod. The door slides open and I catch a glimpse of an amazed man in shirt-sleeves leaning on a shovel. Hurriedly I press the button for the fourth floor.

“You were in the army, were you?” I humour the wizened octogenarian.

“The Gold Coast. That’s where you get them. Big, wobbling titties wanging against your belly. That’s the stuff to give the troops, eh?”

“It’s very nice,” I say appeasingly. “But don’t you think you ought to put it away now?”

“I know just where to put it away. It won’t keep, you know. They don’t.”

What a very lively old man, I think to myself. I bet he has more than a glass of Lucozade for elevenses.

“You’ve got a firm bosom, my dear.”

“Thank you. Can I have it back now?” For a senior citizen he certainly has very strong fingers. I can hardly prise them off my sweater.

The doors slide open on the fourth floor and there is an astonished nurse blinking at us.

“What happened to you, Mr Arkwright?”

Greybeard shrinks into his wheelchair and half closes his eyes.

“She tried to elope with me, Nurse Finnegan.”

“He went mad the minute you disappeared,” I say lowering my voice discreetly. “He started mauling me and suggested we made love in the boiler room.”

Nurse Finnegan looks at me in a way that might be described as strange.

“She pressed the button, Nurse.”

“You wicked old man.” I round on him so fiercely that Mr Arkwright sinks even lower into his chair. Nurse Finnegan is looking at me suspiciously.

“You don’t nurse here, do you?”

I give her the famous Rosie Dixon smile. “Not yet. I’ve come to see Matron.”

“What were you doing on the fourth floor?”

“I pressed the wrong button.”

“Don’t leave her with me, Nurse Finnegan,” croaks Arkwright pathetically.

“Hasn’t he done this before?” I whisper.

“They call him Mr Sunshine,” says Nurse Finnegan gazing at me with obvious suspicion.

“Bengers Food,” murmurs Mr Arkwright, closing his eyes.

Nurse Finnegan does not let me out of her sight until she sees me knocking on Matron’s door. I can’t blame her in the circumstances but I wish there was some way of repaying that horrible old man. I am still thinking about my harrowing experience when an upper class voice rings out from the other side of the door. “En-ta!”

I go in and find myself in the presence of a woman who makes Hattie Jacques look like Twiggy’s kid sister. She is sitting behind an antique desk signing papers.

“Miss Dixon?” She does not look up.

“That’s right.”

“My staff address me as matron.”

For a moment I think she is supplying me with some interesting information for my scrap book. Then I cotton on. “Yes, Matron.”

“That’s better. Now, where have you been? I was told you were coming up and then you disappeared for ten minutes.”

“I got lost, Matron.”

“Lost?” Matron looks up at last. “Good gracious. When I look at you I would find it easier to believe that you had been assaulted.”

“Well, actually—” And then I stop myself. Even if she believes that I was attacked by a sex-mad geriatric she will probably think I egged him on. Either way it is not going to make a very good impression.

“Actually, what?”

Matron has enough hair on her upper lip to clog a moustache cup and when she moves, the starch in her uniform crackles like an icy pond breaking up—at least, I imagine it is in her uniform.

“Nothing,” I say.

Matron gazes down her nose towards a bosom that looks like a ruckle in a barrage balloon. “I think I should make it absolutely clear at the onset that I am a stickler for smart turn-out. The discipline required to make sure that one is a credit to oneself and the hospital carries over into one’s attitude to one’s job and inspires confidence in the patients. By arriving here as if you have just been dragged through a hedge backwards you have not taken that first step towards reassuring me that you have the right attitude of mind to become a nurse.”

“I’m afraid my appearance is due to my confusion at losing my way,” I grovel.

Matron gazes up towards the ceiling and sighs. “No matter. The golden days are past. We must be thankful for what we can get.”

“Amen,” I don’t know why I say it. It is just that she drones on in such a way as that I imagine I must be in church.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Granted.”

“What?! !”

“I mean, granted, Matron.”

Matron shudders and her moustache quivers as if a strong wind has just run through it. “I have a horrible suspicion that you are trying to mock me, Miss – er Dixon.”

“Oh no, Matron.” What is the old bag on about?

“Tell me, Miss Dixon.” Crackle, crackle goes Matron’s uniform. “Does your family have a nursing background?”

“I think my father had his tonsils out.”

“No, Miss Dixon.” Something seems to be causing Matron pain. Maybe her cap is on too tight. “What I meant was do you have any relations who have worked in the medical profession?”

“My Aunt Gladys used to work in Boots during the war.”

Matron’s eyes are now tightly closed. “Fascinating. It says on your curriculum vitae that you have one ‘A’ level. What is that?”

I shake my head. “I’m sorry, Matron. I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what ‘A’ level you’ve got?”

“Oh, I see. I thought you meant what does curriculum vimto mean. I’ve got geography.”

“Geography.” Matron shrugs. “It could have been woodwork, I suppose.”

“Not really,” I say, hoping I don’t appear too pushy. “We didn’t do woodwork after ‘O’ levels.”

Matron closes her eyes again. “Of course.” She shudders and then addresses me in a firm brisk voice. “Now, Miss Dixon, I don’t have to tell you that nursing is a hard, arduous profession. You have to dig deep and conscientiously to find jewels. Many girls—” she shakes her head sadly “—just can’t take it.” She looks at me expectantly and I can see that she is hoping that I will speak up and show her that I am not the wilting type.

“I know what I’m letting myself in for,” I say.

Matron nods. “Sometimes it’s a good idea if a gel faces up to the facts right at the onset and realises that she isn’t cut out for the life. Long hours … mental and physical strain … the requirement to study while you work… .” Her voice dies away and she smiles sympathetically. It is the first time I can remember her smiling.

“That’s what everybody says to me,” I tell her.

“Y-e-s.” Matron speaks slowly and thoughtfully. “That’s never worried you? I mean, you think you would be able to cope all right?”

“I’m no stranger to stress,” I tell her. “I used to work on the check-out at Tescos. Of course it was Saturdays only because—”

“We have what we call a four weeks trial period at Queen Adelaide’s.” Matron obviously takes in what you say to her very quickly. “It’s a safety precaution on both sides. During that time a nurse is able to see if she likes the life and—” Matron pauses dramatically “—we are able to see if we like her. Should we find that we are suited to each other, training proceeds, with preliminary examinations after one year and the majority of our gels becoming fully qualified State Registered Nurses after three years.”

I give her my cool, efficient nod and tuck my blouse back into the top of my skirt—ooh! I would like to take away that old man’s false teeth and feed him toast. Matron crackles and gives me another smile. “You’re not intimidated?”

I think hard for a minute and then shake my head. “I don’t think so. I’ve had a polio jab, though.”

Poor Matron. There is no doubt that she is in pain. Probably some tummy upset due to all the strains and stresses of the job. “We will be writing to you in due course. Thank you for coming to see me and for expressing your willingness to indulge in life’s noblest work.”

For a moment I think she is going to stand up but she just crackles and goes back to signing papers. The interview is presumably over. Short and sweet. It could have been worse. I win another brisk nod when I fall over a chair and then hobble out into the corridor. There is no sign of Mr Arkwright but I go down by the stairs, just in case.

CHAPTER 4

I will always remember the day the letter arrived saying that I have been accepted for training at Queen Adelaide’s because it coincided with the headlines in the paper reading “Shortage of Nurses reaches epidemic proportions.”

“What’s that bit underlined in red?” says Dad, who is studying every word of the letter as if he cannot believe his eyes.

“That’s the safe period, Dad.”

“The safe period!?”

“A trial period while we see if we’re suited to each other,” I explain.

Dad looks less worried. “I was going to say, I’m not all that struck on safe periods.” He looks at Mum in a funny way. Mum avoids his eyes.

“That’s wonderful news, dear,” she says. “Queen Adelaide’s is a lovely hospital. I remember my Aunty Maud dying there. It was the happiest time of her life.”

Dad looks me up and down and a worried expression slowly spreads across his face. “You look after what you’ve got,” he says.

Dad need not worry. I have no intention of allowing my new found freedom to tempt me into loose habits. His belief that I have low moral standards must come from some Freudian backwater of the mind up which I would not like to propel myself without a paddle.

It has always been my intention to present my future husband with the precious gift of my virginity upon our wedding day. An old fashioned idea, you may think, but one that I take very seriously. Perhaps I hear you say: Yes, but what about Geoffrey and the ton-up boys? Well, I don’t think anything really happened with Geoffrey. Certainly, I can’t remember it and that is what it is all about, isn’t it? I mean, virginity is a state of mind, isn’t it? Take the ton-up boys who took me, for example. I suppose that technically they all had sexual intercourse with me but it was completely against my will. While the thick banks of muscle were thudding against my quivering pelvis my eyes were tightly closed. You can’t say, that in a situation like that, I lost my virginity. I was just moving it swiftly to one side in order to save my sister from the horrible experience and my mother from the shame.

Not, of course, that I am a prude. I have indulged in my share of heavy petting. In fact, I think that Dad’s attitude to me may have been shaped by the time he found me in the front room with Terry Miller. I was much younger then and at the age when you do things without really thinking, or rather, you do things because you think everyone else is doing them. I was amazed the way Dad flew off the handle. He would still have thrown Terry’s Y-fronts on the fire if the poor bloke had been wearing them.

What disturbs me most is my capacity to arouse strong sexual feelings in the most unlikely people. A few more patients like Mr Arkwright and things could be very embarrassing. I can’t understand what it is about me. I am just a normal 38-22-36 inch blonde, five foot eight-and-a-half inches tall. I don’t receive a lot of letters of complaint about my body but I am not that different to other girls. It must be some kind of chemistry. I am like a piece of litmus paper. When certain men look at me they start to turn red.

My farewell to Mum, Dad and Natalie is spared from becoming too emotional an occasion by the discovery of Mum’s rhubarb on top of the kitchen cupboard shortly before I leave. In the five weeks that it has been there it has undergone some interesting changes and I doubt if Queen Adelaide’s has many less pleasant sights in store for me.

In typical fashion Natalie blames me and in typical fashion I tell her what she can do with the rhubarb. Dad sides with her and Mum says it is both our faults, which is true. What really makes me choked is the way that I have behaved in exactly the same forgetful fashion that I would expect from Mum. I always feel slightly superior to her when she gets dithery and yet I have to go and do a thing like that.

“At least you won’t have to heat it up,” I say. “That fur will keep it warm, no trouble.”

Natalie pretends to be disgusted and it is all I can do to stop myself from giving her a slap. That girl would take the salute at a march past of flashers without batting an eyelid so she has nothing to act up about.

All in all—and nearly free for all—I am glad when the taxi comes. Dad reckons that this is sheer extravagance but I tell him that I want to arrive at the hospital as a student nurse, not a patient. Lugging a heavy suitcase from one end of London to another is not my idea of gentle exercise.

Despite the fact that I tell Dad that he is a mean old sod I watch the meter like a hawk. I don’t think I look out of the window once. I will traffic lights to turn green and make little jerking movements to help ease us through the traffic. The driver is the young chatty type and I should be warned.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what are you going in for?” he says, drumming his fingers on the side of the cab.

“I’m going to be a nurse.” As it turns out I should have said rabies.

“Oh.” Immediately he sounds much more cheerful. “Wonderful bunch of girls, nurses. I think they do a fantastic job.”

“Yes,” I say. The meter has now clocked up 85p. Since the journey started the value of the pound has probably passed it travelling in the opposite direction.

“I’ve been out with quite a few nurses. They always like a bit of fun. Know what I mean?”

“Yes.” Honestly, it is ridiculous the way this meter goes on. The digits on a petrol pump travel slower.

“I expect you’re just the same?”

“Yes.” And what are all those extras? This bloke would obviously charge you 3p for your hand bag.

“A bit of slap and tickle never did anyone any harm. That’s what I say. I mean, you’re a mug if you think different these days, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” I break my concentration to dart a quick glance out of the window. We must be nearly there now. Yes, that’s the park.

“Do you fancy a bit of a giggle this evening?”

One pound 25p! I could have gone to Brighton for the day with that.

“I said do you fancy coming out with me?”

“Yes—I mean, what did you say?”

“Gordon Bennett! Your ears don’t see very far, do they?”

At last the cab has stopped but the meter is still running.

“How much is that?” I say hurriedly.

The driver opens his door, swears at the bloke he nearly knocks off a bicycle, and slowly walks round to where my cases are strapped.

“Nothing, if you’re a good girl,” he says. Before I can say “turn the meter off” he has opened the door and is pushing me back into my seat. “How about a ride for a ride?”

“Do you mind!” I say forcefully. “Let me out of this cab. And turn that meter off! We’re not going anywhere.”

“We can soon change that.” Without further ado the horrible herbert hoists his horny hand up my skirt. How unpleasant. And totally uncalled for. With my luck I could have had this experience on the tube for a fraction of the money.

“How dare you!” Mary Peters could not fail to be impressed by the speed and grace with which I jab my elbow in the direction of Ben Hur’s action man kit.

“What’s the matter, darling? Why are you suddenly playing hard to get?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Let me go!” This time my aim is better and I am rewarded with a gold medal groan as my excitable fellow passenger cops a bunch of fives in the nether regions. From the noise he is making it sounds as if I have made them the “never” regions.

I do not hang around to see if I can put on a spring but escape onto the pavement, fast.

I am struggling with my cases when a huge, roly-poly bear of a man with a beard and an untidy mane of black hair appears at my side.

“Is this driver free?” he asks.

“Very,” I snap.

“Where is he?” The man has a deep voice that sounds like Clement Freud selling dog food or the Liberal Party but I have left my portable tape recorder at home.

“He’s sitting in the back—correction, lying in the back,” I say.

“How very odd.” The man looks from me to the driver and then back to me again. “Is he all right?”

“I hope not,” I say.

It is not in my nature to be unkind to anyone but with everyone else making stands I feel that I might as well make one too. Black beard stares at me thoughtfully and opens the cab door.

“Aren’t you going to help the lady?”

“Aaaaaaaargh!” says the driver.

“He’s already tried,” I say tartly. “Excuse me.” I tug my skirt into shape and trudge off with my cases. Thank goodness this unsavoury incident took place outside the nurses home and not the main hospital. I wonder who the man with the beard was. He had very piercing eyes.

It is not until I hear the taxi pulling away that I realise I have not paid any fare. Oh dear. Still, I expect I will be able to live with myself.

Inside the entrance to the nurses home is an office and inside the office is a small man wearing a brown house coat. He is smoking a brown cigarette which looks as if it grows out of his brown mouth.

“Yes?” he says when I have cleared my throat a couple of times.

“My name is Dixon. I’m a new nurse.”

“Oh yeah.” The man drags himself out of his chair and rises slowly to his feet in a series of harrowing wheezes. “My back,” he explains.

“You should see a doctor,” I say sunnily.

The man winces. “I seen enough bleeding doctors in this job, don’t you worry. Now, what did you say your name was? Nixon?”

“Dixon.”

“That’s right.” The man rocks on his feet as a long shudder passes through his body. When you look at him you feel that he must have bought up most of the stomach powders in South West London—brought up quite a few of them too.

“Dixon R. You’re sharing with Green P. in 5C.”

“Thanks very M,” I say. “I hope we don’t land in the soup.”

“Yerwhat?”

“Green Pea,” I say merrily. “It’s a kind of soup, isn’t it?”

The man looks at me as if I am round the bend. “What’s that got to do with it?”

“Nothing at all,” I say wearily. “Which floor is 5C on?”

“The fifth. The lift is out of order and you’ll have to carry your own bags up. I can’t risk my back. I’ve done too much of it.” He could only be referring to carrying bags.

“You’re the porter are you, Mr—?”

“Greaves.”

“Spelt G-R-I-E-V-E-S?”

“E-A,” says Mr G warily. “You’re not trying to be funny, are you?”

I shake my head and begin to drag my bags towards the stairs. Greaves watches me as if he thinks I am going to start snapping off lengths of bannister rail and hide them in my knickers.

There is a telephone in the hall and a small, dark girl is twisting the flex into knots as I go past. I cannot help overhearing what she is saying because she has a loud voice and I am listening very hard.

“Oh yes, darling. Yes please, I’d love it, love it, love it.” I wonder if the flex was coiled before she started the call.

“Oh God, I wish you would be here now. I crave you. Capital K: Crave!” Something tells me she is not talking to her local rent assessment officer—still, you never know these days. “All right snooky-pooky, until this evening. Give my love to the Red Baron.” I wonder who the red baron could be? Of course it might be—no, it couldn’t. I have been living with Natalie too long. I must try and stop thinking about things like that.

The voice dies away with the first bend in the stairs and I day dream about how nice it will be when I too have been here a few months and settled down with a nice boyfriend. I know that my first weeks are going to be spent with a Sister Tutor but after that I will go on one of the wards as a junior. Provided I like it of course. It is very sensible of them to give you the option to leave after a month. As Matron said, I expect that there are a lot of girls who are not really suited to the life.

By the time I get to the fifth floor I am exhausted. I don’t know it then but it is the best introduction to being a nurse that I could possibly have had. It is not tender, compassionate hands that keep a hospital functioning but the nurses’ feet driving round the wards at a rate that would make the average marathon runner trade in his gym shoes.

5A, 5B, 5C. It would have to be right at the end of the corridor. I knock on the door. No answer. I adjust my ‘pleased to meet you’ smile, just in case, and turn the knob. The room has not featured in any of the Homes And Gardens I have leafed through at the dentist but it looks comfortable enough with two single beds, a large cupboard and a dressing table-cum-chest-of-drawers. The bed nearest the window has two expensive looking cases on it—you know, genuine imitation pigskin—and one of them carries a label saying Penelope Green. I hope this bird is not going to be hopelessly toffee-nosed and tweedy. I would have fancied someone a bit more with-it myself.

I have just taken my jacket off when the door bursts open and the girl who was on the telephone in the hall rockets into the room.

“Christ,” she says. “Those bloody stairs could give you a miscarriage before you fell. I’m Green P. What super boobs you’ve got.”

The words come out like an explosion in a sugar puff factory and I almost duck.

“Um—Rosie Dixon,” I say. “We’re sharing a room, aren’t we?”

“If that dwarf genitaled bronchitic in reception is to be believed we are. My name is Penelope but most people call me Penny, or ‘you’, or something like that. I say, you don’t have a dutch cap, do you? I think mine has perished.”

“I’m on the pill,” I stammer. Of course this is only a precautionary measure. Just think how awful it would have been being raped by those three greasers if there had been a danger of getting in the family way?

“It doesn’t matter,” says Penny breezily. “It would probably have been too big anyway.” Before I can thank her for the compliment she continues. “You’re so lucky being on the pill. I’m not brainy enough. I keep getting the days mixed up or losing them. I had a boyfriend once who took half a dozen to cure a headache.”

Penny speaks in this posh voice but she is certainly not stuck-up—well, you know what I mean. I nod weakly and wish I did not feel so inadequate.

“It’s my first night in London for months,” sighs Penny. “I have this boyfriend who is absolutely out of this world. I met him at the Badminton Horse Trials. My God, but I envied his mount every inch of that cross-country course.”

“Yes,” I say thinking that this girl makes sister Natalie seem like an apprentice nun.

“I couldn’t take my thighs off him. Do you know what I mean?”

I nod weakly. “We’re not going to be allowed out on our first night, are we?” I say.

“Oh Jodhpurs! They can stuff that for a start. They haven’t built the nurses home yet that can hold Penny Green. Nothing is going to keep me from Mark’s comely withers this eve.”

Full marks for persistence, I think to myself. “That was him on the telephone, was it?”